Nobel prize winner Sir James Black dies aged 85

NOBEL prize-winning scientist Sir James Black has died at the age of 85.

• Sir James Black with his Nobel prize medal, awarded to him for his work on drug development, namely his invention of the beta-blocker drug propranolol. Picture: Neil Hanna

He was regarded as one of the world's outstanding scientists and his work is credited with saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of heart patients.

Sir James, born in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, developed beta-blockers, revolutionising the treatment of many heart conditions.

Yesterday, his family said his death had followed a long illness.

Sir James was educated in Cowdenbeath, Fife, and studied medicine at the University of St Andrews.

During a career which spanned industry and the academic world, he established the physiology department at University of Glasgow and lectured at both University College and King's College in London.

Sir James's contribution to science was recognised at the highest level in 1988, when he won the Nobel prize for medicine for his work on drug development.

His invention of the beta-blocker drug propranolol is considered one of the major breakthroughs in pharmacology of the 20th century. When told he had won the Nobel prize, Sir James was heard to remark: "I wish I had my beta-blockers handy."

He also made significant discoveries in the development of drugs to treat heartburn and ulcers.

In 2000, he was given the Order of Merit, the highest honour that can be bestowed upon an individual personally by the Queen.

The scientist also enjoyed a lengthy association with the University of Dundee, where he was Chancellor from 1992 to 2006. The institution built a research centre in his name and he maintained regular contact with friends and colleagues in Dundee until the time of his death.

Professor Pete Downes, the principal and vice-chancellor of the university, said yesterday : "Sir James was known to many of us here over many years, and we will miss him greatly.

"During his time as chancellor, he served the university with commitment, wisdom, grace and distinction.

"He was a great scientist who took a keen interest in the development of our research here at Dundee, but he was also a great man to know.

"He inspired so many people, from students to senior academics and industrialists, right up until the last few months of his life."

Prof Downes added: "I am personally proud and immensely fortunate to have known him for many years."

Last April, Sir James visited the "Famous Scots" exhibition at the ScotlandsPeople Centre in Edinburgh, where his family history was displayed as part of a series to celebrate Homecoming Scotland 2009.

Records showed he descended from a long line of coal miners.

His father Walter, who was working at the coalface at the age of 13, attended night school after his shifts in order to qualify as a mine engineer.

He became pit manager and his strong belief in education encouraged his five sons to pursue other careers.

On his mother's side, Sir James had an ancestor who was a Perthshire parish schoolmaster, who married the daughter of a crofter and postman in 1819.

A university spokesman said Sir James's funeral would be held on Monday at St Columba's Church in London.

In his official biography written for the Nobel Organisation, Sir James wrote: "I chose to study medicine mainly under the influence of an elder brother, William, a graduate in Medicine at St Andrews some years earlier.

"In the cold, forbidding, greyness of St Andrews – with its dedication to 'causes purely spiritual and intellectual, to religion and learning' (Andrew Lang) – I learned, for the first time, the joys of substituting hard, disciplined study for the indulgence of day-dreaming. Undergraduate prizes seemed to confirm I was working harder than my colleagues in a love affair with knowledge.

"An important catalyst in my conversion to scholarship was my first year encounter with Professor D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson, last of the great Victorian polymaths, author inter alia of the classic allometric study 'On Growth and Form' and an intellectual giant if ever there was one."

BREAKTHROUGH

SIR James Black created propranolol, a drug that successfully blocked the heart's adrenaline-responsive beta-receptors – hence the commonly used term "beta-blockers".

Beta-blockers are widely used to treat hypertension and angina by preventing stimulation of certain nerve endings.

They are considered one of the most important contributions to clinical medicine and pharmacology in the 20th century.